Corporate Onboarding for Gen Zers, a Guide for New Executives Joining the Corporate Workforce

By Victor G. Sanchez

This book is meant to provide some guidance to new generations of recently graduated students joining the workforce in a corporation. It gives some tips and recommendations from an executive with more than 20 years of international experience in the Consumer Packaged Goods industry to help them understand a company, manage their interactions effectively and advance their career. It includes a summary of essential skills to know that are convenient to develop in order to succeed in the corporate world, regardless of the functional area they end up working in.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Victor G. Sanchez
• Release date: Mar 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005332167

Victor G. Sanchez

Victor G. Sánchez is a Global Sales and Marketing professional with over 20 years of international experience in the Consumptions Packaged Goods industry. Victor holds a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from the Universidad Panamericana and a Master's in Business Administration from Thunderbird School of Global Management.He has proven his value in leading cross-functional teams to develop business strategies, drive innovation and build commercial capability, which resulted in accelerated revenue growth, customer satisfaction and best in class execution.Keen and robust analytical professional who interprets consumer, shopper and customer insights, applies deep strategic and operational expertise to create value with an unwavering customer focus. Victor is an innovative and collaborative executive with an exceptional ability to build high-performing teams to deliver solutions to target.

Book preview

Corporate Onboarding for Gen Zers

a Guide for New Executives Joining the Corporate Workforce.

By Victor G. Sánchez

Copyright 2021 Victor G. Sánchez

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Part 1. Introduction to Corporate Business

Chapter 1. What companies are made for & the value chain

Part 2. Career Progression and the Journey

Chapter 2. Learn, Excel & Grow with a clear vision

Chapter 3. Corporate players and branding yourself

Chapter 4. Leadership Styles

Chapter 5. People Management & Managing up

Part 3. Seven Key Timeless Groups of Skills to Succeed

Chapter 6. Interpreting Data, Mapping Processes and Driving Strategy

Chapter 7. Financial Acumen

Chapter 8. Effective Communication, Storytelling & Presentations

Chapter 9. Influencing, Negotiation and Customer Management

Chapter 10. Networking and creating meaningful connections

Chapter 11. Project Management & Performance Tracking

Chapter 12. Emotional & Cultural Intelligence

Part 4. Understanding Corporate Culture

Chapter 13. Values, Purpose & Personal Fit

Chapter 14. Leadership Agenda & Playing the Game

Chapter 15. Diversity

Chapter 16. Six Corporate Sins to Watch Out For

Part 5. Performance & Life Balance

Chapter 17. Self-Awareness; what I like, what I’m good at & where I want to go

Chapter 18. Continue Growing

Chapter 19. Deliver Results, Develop Others, Network & Enjoy the Journey

Chapter 20. Be Authentic to your Values

Chapter 21. Balance is the Key

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Sources

Introduction

Have you ever heard the question, if you could travel back in time what would be the advice you would give yourself when you were 18 years old? I have, and my answer is very simple, I would have invested on stock options of Amazon, Walmart or FEMSA, and with the appreciation these companies have had over the last 20 years I would probably have already retired.

But this is not like a Back to the future movie where you can give yourself the sports almanac to predict with certainty what is going to happen in the future. But you can help the new generations, passing them advice, knowhow and tips for those that interested in working in the corporate world. That’s why I decided to write this book.

I am a global commercial leader with over 20 years of international experience working for the Consumption Packaged Goods industry (CPG). I can say that I have enjoyed the ride and had a great career, but if I had understood earlier some of the concepts I’m going to describe in this book, it would definitely have helped me be more effective as an executive. Hearing my sons talking about business and companies inspired me to pass along some of my learning’s about the corporate business.

During my school life, including my university studies (Bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering) I thought I was preparing myself for the working life. But the reality is that I was not only learning some technical and managerial skills or doing some mental pushups to address problem-solving challenges.

I was learning how to be disciplined… yes how to manage workload and meet deadlines,

I was learning how to be creative…how to find alternative solutions to problems,

I was learning to feed my brain… ability to be hungry and continue learning new things.

At work, I never have to solve a logarithmic equation or use any thermodynamics equation to solve a problem. However, by solving those math or physics problems at school, I developed a logical thought process and an ability to connect the dots to solve problems in a disciplined and creative way while continually learning new things.

Since this book is meant to be an onboarding guide to the corporate world, I’m going to be sharing some educational and technical points as well as some real stories and situations from different moments in my corporate career to illustrate the concepts (Note that the names mentioned in this book are fictitious).

As you may imagine, there is a lot of content, learning’s and experiences to talk about with more than 20 years of corporate life. But to keep it simple and easier to digest I have organized the content of this book in 5 parts, each of them with practical examples and concepts that you can apply when joining the corporate workforce.

1. Introduction to Corporate Business: Here, I will cover some fundamentals of business, the main types of business, the value chain and the main departments in a corporation and the purpose of companies.

2. Career Progression and the Journey: In this part, I am going to talk about career progression and show you how to develop the discipline to continue advancing. I will also show you how to identify the people you will interact with, their personalities, leadership styles, and how to navigate the corporate environment to succeed.

3. Seven Key Timeless Groups of Skills to Succeed: In this section, I am going to share seven groups of fundamental skills to advance your career. These are skills that you should work to master, because regardless of the technological, scientific, social and political environment changes, you are going to continue creating value with these skills for yourself and for the company, today and tomorrow.

4. Understanding Corporate Culture: In this part, I will share some tips to understand corporate culture, how to navigate it, determine your fit in the company and watch out for some of the mistakes (I call them the 6 sins) corporations make.

5. Performance & Balance: With this part I will wrap up with some practical advice to continue advancing in your career, while taking care of yourself and enjoying the ride.

Part 1.

Introduction to Corporate Business

Chapter 1. What Companies are made for & the Value Chain

A company is a legal entity formed by a group of individuals to engage in, and operate a business; offering a service or a product, but with the ultimate goal to create value. The line of the business will generally determine which business structure is chosen. Then, depending on the business structure, the ownership, responsibilities, liabilities, taxation and profit splits varies.

Sole Proprietorship: It has a single owner who pays personal income tax on profits earned from the business. This is a flexible form of business, and gives you freedom of decision, since the owner has a high degree of control and fast decision-making opportunities.

Partnership: Is a business agreement between 2 or more people who are called partners. The partners pool their resources to operate a shared business, sharing liabilities, profit and losses. In Canada, there are 3 main types of partnerships:

Corporation: Is a legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners. Corporations are like legal persons, they loan and borrow money, own assets, have expenses and pay taxes. The owners of corporations are the shareholders. Shareholders have limited liability. There are different types of corporations for tax purposes. In Canada there are 5 types of corporations.

In the USA there are mainly 3 types of corporations.

The main difference between a company and a corporation is the size; corporations are larger and more structured and complex than a company.

Companies exist to create value, and they do it by fulfilling the demand for a product or service, managing their value chain to maximize its efficiency at scale. Whether you are buying a t-shirt, a bar of chocolate, a computer or insurance from a company, these products and services require an organizational structure to make them available to you.

This structure is how companies organize themselves internally to manage their value chain. There are three main functions within the organizational structures: demand creation, demand fulfillment and supporting functions.

Examples of Demand Creation functions:

Marketing Department: Is primarily responsible to engage and influence the consumers to buy the company's product. Marketing has a wide span of sub-departments that help understand and develop effective strategies to connect with the consumer.

Some examples of marketing sub-departments are:

Marketing Insights: Responsible for understanding the consumer and shopper behaviour.

Brand Managers: Responsible for identifying, quantify and prioritizing growth opportunities for the brand as well as defining the brand strategy, the brand vision and its ambition (what a brand stands for or wants to stand for). Brand managers also work with third party agencies to develop advertising and communication campaigns.

Integrated Marketing Communications team: Responsible for defining the optimal way to manage the media mix (owned, paid or earned media) to maximize the consumer's impact.

Sales Department: Responsible for managing the customer relationships and sales; this department is usually organized by type of channel (distribution channel to get the product to the final consumer) or account. Depending on the customer's size and the confidentiality policies, some customers may demand to have a dedicated account management team; in other cases, a salesperson may manage multiple accounts.

Commercial Department: This department is primarily responsible for identifying internal and external opportunities to define a commercial strategy, manage and optimize the existing portfolio, or